The Critical Cultural Theory Group cordially invites you to a workshop on 'Art, Play and Philosophy'. Three philosophers and an artist will explore the concept of 'play' in relation to art and life. Taking cue from different philosophical and artistic traditions, they all underline the vital role of 'play' in the way we relate to ourselves, the world and each other. All welcome!

Guests and talks:

Anne Boissière (Prof. em. Philosophy of Art, Lille University)
14-15.00           ‘Playing Aliveness and Art’

Stephen Harris (Assistant Professor in Indian and Comparative Philosophy, Leiden Univ.)  
15-16.00           ‘Advaita Vedānta: līlā and the Ontology of Play.’

Monique Roelofs (Prof. Philosophy of Art and Culture, UvA)
16-17.00          ‘Shaping Lines of Connection: Play as a Component of a Decolonial Feminist Aesthetics’

Laurie Schram (artist based in Den Haag)
17-18.00           ‘Teasing Rigidity’


Anne Boissière, is Professor Emerita in Philosophy of Art at Lille University, France. She works at the intersection of critical theory, phenomenology, psychoanalysis and aesthetics. More recently she has worked on the notion of play and improvisation in specific relation to voice. She works regularly with the Museum of Contemporary Art (LaM) in Lille. She is author of Le mouvement à l’œuvre, entre jeu et art, Sesto San Giovanni, Mimésis, 2018; Chanter Narrer Danser, Contribution à une philosophie du sentir, Sampzon, Delatour France, 2016 ; Musique Mouvement, Paris, Manucius, 2014 ; La pensée musicale de Theodor W. Adorno, l’épique et le temps, Paris, Beauchesne, 2011

Stephen Harris, is Assistant Professor (Universitair Docent) at Leiden University’s Institute for Philosophy. He specializes in Cross-Cultural and Indian philosophy, with a particular interest in Buddhist ethical texts.  He has published articles in a number of academic journals. His recent research focuses on the moral thought of the 8th century CE Mahayana Buddhist philosopher, Śāntideva, and in particular his views on happiness and suffering.  

Monique Roelofs, is Professor of Philosophy of Art and Culture at the University of Amsterdam. Her research explores the relation between aesthetics and politics, with a special focus on the dynamics of race, gender, nation, coloniality, and the global. She is the author of Arts of Address: Being Alive to Language and The World (Columbia UP, 2020) and The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic (2014). Roelofs has recently completed a new book manuscript, Aesthetics, Address, and the Politics of Culture. She is also coauthoring a book on aesthetics and temporality in Latinx and Latin America and coediting the collection Black Art and Aesthetics: Relationalities, Interiorities, Reckonings (Bloomsbury, forthcoming November 2023).

Laurie Schram, graduated with work mainly focused on currency; playing with money as a material is a means to examine its power and the promise it bears. Her work revolves around themes of a socio-political nature and conceptualises status through objects. In recent years Schram has focussed on collaborative work. Since re-locating to The Netherlands after nearly two decades of living and working in the UK Schram has set up Space Fantastic and had a retrospective exhibition with Unperceived existence at Gallery Shush.